Alas! and Did my Savior Bleed

[In] the autumn of 1850…re­viv­al meet­ings were be­ing held in the Thir­ti­eth Street Meth­od­ist Church [, New York Ci­ty]. Some of us went down ev­ery ev­en­ing; and, on two oc­ca­sions, I sought peace at the at­lar [sic], but did not find the joy I craved, un­til one ev­en­ing, No­vem­ber 20, 1850, it seemed to me that the light must in­deed come then or ne­ver; and so I arose and went to the al­tar alone. A­fter a prayer was of­fered, they be­gan to sing the grand old con­se­cra­tion hymn, “Alas, and did my Sav­iour bleed, And did my Sov­er­eign die?” And when they reached the third line of the fourth [sic] stan­za, “Here Lord, I give my­self away,” my very soul was flood­ed with a ce­les­ti­al light. I sprang to my feet, shout­ing “hal­le­lu­jah,” and then for the first time I real­ized that I had been try­ing to hold the world in one hand and the Lord in the other.